The IT company that built the case management system for the new Unified Patent Court aims to provide a mixture of in-person training and e-learning tools as early as this month, Managing IP can reveal.
Representatives from the UPC and Italian IT company Net Service held a two-day pilot training session at the Simmons & Simmons office in London on Thursday and Friday last week (June 30 and July 1).
That was the first chance for members of the legal profession to trial the most up-to-date version of the CMS.
There is currently a test version of the CMS available to the public, but this only includes the tools for opting patents out of the system and to register as a legal representative before the court.
These procedures will be available to users during the sunrise period, which will begin when Germany formally ratifies the UPC Agreement.
Managing IP can reveal that Net Service plans to publish an e-learning module for the sunrise procedures this month, with a target deadline of July 15.
Cristiano Morganti, program manager for the UPC CMS at Net Service, told Managing IP that the company was currently finetuning the sunrise training module and hoped to have it ready by the end of next week.
Training for the full version of the CMS will follow later this year and Net Service aims to finalise a training programme in the next two months, Morganti said.
The UPC and Net Service are currently weighing up two main options for the training – either a permanent centre established in a central European location or local training sessions held at different European sites.
It is understood that the latter option could pose technical and IT challenges, which could tip the balance in favour of a fixed training site.
Kevin Mooney, partner at Simmons & Simmons and chair of the committee that drafted the UPC rules of procedure, said Munich and Brussels were both being considered as a venue for a training centre.
“A fixed training centre is the preferred option but we’re not excluding multiple locations,” Mooney said.
The UPC is expected to open early next year, with final preparations including completion of the IT system and the appointment of judges already underway.
Thomas Gniadek, a partner at Simmons & Simmons in Munich who was at the pilot training last week, was impressed with the new CMS.
“It is totally different from anything I have seen before.
“Older systems I have used were more like e-mail based systems, but this CMS is very closely matched to the actual rules of procedure,” Gniadek said.
